INTERACTIVE CORONARY MRI

The acquisition of complete three-dimensional (3D), segmented gradient -echo data sets to visualize the coronary arteries can be both time co nsuming and sensitive to motion, even with use of multiple breath-hold ing or respiratory gating, An alternate hybrid approach is demonstrate d here, in which real-time interactive imaging is first used to locate an optimal oblique coronary scan plane. Then, a limited number of con tiguous slices are acquired around that plane within a breath-hold wit h use of two-dimensional (2D) segmented gradient-echo imaging. Dual in version nulling is used to suppress fat and myocardium. Finally, if ne eded, a limited reformat of the data is performed to produce images fr om relatively long sections of the coronaries. This approach yields re latively rapid visualization of portions of the coronary tree. Several different methods are compared for interactively moving the scan plan e.